1. Technical Field
The present invention relates to a system for displaying and supporting product containers and, more particularly, to a merchandise facing system including a product container support and display device including a product orienting member to compel a preselected orientation of a display surface of a product container having a product container alignment member.
2. Background
A variety of food products, including beverages, are displayed for retail sale on a variety of racks and shelving including horizontal shelving and inclined or gravity feed type shelving. Typically, the product containers are stocked on the shelves with the labels facing forward with an identical product and product container stocked just behind the lead or facing container. Often, the product containers may be supported and displayed on an inclined display rack as shown in Bostos, U.S. Pat. No. 4,128,177; Young et al., U.S. Pat. No. 4,598,828; Jay, U.S. Pat. No. 5,645,176; Parham et al., U.S. Pat. No. 5,531,336; and Suttles, U.S. Pat. No. 4,401,221. The devices disclosed in each of the above referenced patents provide a means for displaying product containers including a means for advancing the product to the front of the display by gravity feed. This is achieved through the use of an inclined member which supports the product container.
These referenced merchandising systems have solved the problem that exists with horizontal display, which typically lacks a means to advance the product to the front of the shelf following removal of the lead product container. Ultimately, these arrangements serve one purpose in terms of the product manufacturer or distributor's objectives, that being moving the product to the front of the display case so that a consumer standing in front of the product display can readily see the product container. This objective is of utmost concern to product manufacturers and distributors who spend literally millions of dollars annually on advertisement and marketing campaigns in an attempt to have the purchasing public readily recognize their product identity, whether in the form of labeling or in the form of specific product configurations. Jay, U.S. Pat. No. 5,645,176, discloses a display rack including a pair of laterally spaced upstanding walls and a planar track connecting the sidewalls and also includes a front member which, with the front of the track, defines an aperture through which a substantial portion of the lead article in the channel may be viewed.
Nevertheless, devices such as those disclosed in Jay still do not solve the problem of assuring that each product container placed on the display and dispensing rack or other device is properly faced, thereby displaying the product identification label directly towards the front of the dispensing unit.
A common arrangement between distributors and retailers includes the distributor's obligation to stock his product in a retail display. Most distributors, as a matter of practice, and many retailers, as a matter of policy, require the distributor to ensure that the product is properly faced in the display. That is, that the product's identification labeling, as opposed to the consumer information labeling, faces directly forward in the display racks. The distributor's personnel, as a matter of routine, then typically spends five to ten minutes per each delivery stop facing the existing and previously stocked product prior to restocking the retailer's supply. At an average of ten to twenty stops per day, each distributor's representative will spend an approximately an hour a day simply facing product which was previously stocked on the shelves so as to display uniformly the product's product identification labeling.
Even if the distributor's representative took the time to properly face each and every container placed behind the lead article when stocking, oftentimes a customer will remove the lead article from the display, and then replace it at a later time having made a choice not to purchase that article.
What is needed is a device that provides a means whereby each article that is placed in the display device will be faced with the product identification labeling faced towards the front of the display device simply by placement on the device.